The iPad was recently picked for the top 50 inventions of 2010 by Time Magazine! The articles notes carefully word that the iPad is not a new invention though but more so a reinventionof a product that had been unsuccessful in the past. Tablet computers are obviously far from a new invention. Looking back on it, the pen tablet was developed in the mid 80s at a Boston-area startup, and touchscreen PCs have been around since the early part of this century – however the technology never actually caught on. Harry McCracken, the Times correspondent wrote in his article, ‘the iPad is merely a follow-up to such resoundingly unpopular slate-style computers as Microsoft’s Tablet PC.” He did observe that Apple was good at reinventing the category that many of its competitors had given up on. As a result, Apple ended up achieving success with the iPad because they were “the first company that designed finger-friendly hardware and software from scratch rather than stuffing a PC into a keyboardless case.”

Aside from the iPad itself, three out of the six best inventions in the Technology section had to do with Apple’s iOS. Among them were The Flipboard app, which is an app that combines updates from Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds in a graphically appealing magazine style layout. Another was the Square credit card reader for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android as one of the year’s top innovations.

Source: Flipboard, Square,  Time

Authors: TechHead

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